This brochure offers decision-makers in the real estate and energy industries, as well as urban and municipal developers, a broad overview of the topics of decentralised energy generation and supply, and raises awareness of the goal of decarbonisation by 2050 at the latest. The advancing digitalization in the construction and …
ENVIRONMENTAL NGOs in the US are rushing ahead of their government in both their desire and actions to act as the world's green helmets. A statement issued by the Environment Defence Fund and other US environmental groups at the time of the G-7 Tokyo Summit against the World Bank loan …
Centre of Concern for Child Labour 247, Akashdarshan Apartments Mayur Vihar-I New Delhi 110 091 Ph: 2252298 Bandhua Mukti Morcha 7, Jantar Mantar Road New Delhi 110 001 Ph: 3329043 Nanban Obula Padithurai Manuchalai Road Madurai 625 009 Institute for Social Education and Development Block No 41/3, 14th Lane, Indira …
CHILDREN comprise six per cent of India's total organised work force; they also contribute an average 23 per cent of a household's domestic savings. Yet, exploitation of children as a social problem has only recently begun to agitate the international conscience. Germany and USA have now refused to import items, …
Anybody wanting information about Indian medicinal plants will soon be able to get it at the push of a button. Work on a multidisciplinary, computerised databank, Inmedplan (Indian Medicinal Plants National Network of Distribution of Databases), has started and is due to go on-line by the end of the year. …
THE GLOBAL Environment Facility (GEF) meeting in Beijing recently marked the beginning of the first year after Rio. And it set the tone for the green world order of tomorrow -- a world in which Southern governments are conciliatory but persistent with their demand for more green funds; in which …
THERE are few words in the English language as evocative as population. Most tongues would wag it as something uncontrollable. It also evokes the notion of pressure, of human flotsam spilling over national boundaries. Among development experts, it evokes the concept of irresponsible procreation, and insufficient funding for birth control …
Moderator: I understand your centre was against the forest convention, which was presented in Brazil. For me it's amazing, because as an NGO, how can you possibly go against the convention? Sunita Narain: Through this convention we will actually end up destroying forests. We strongly believe that the forest convention …
The Union government has made yet another feeble attempt at a dialogue with opponents of the Rs 13,000-crore Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). Union water resources minister V C Shukla was forced to heed the demands of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) for a comprehensive review of the project after its …
I heard in Baroda on June 2 that the authorities were planning to demolish Keshubhai's hut. That night, some of us sneaked past the police cordon around Manibeli and entered the hut. Around 11 am on June 3, some 100 police surrounded the hut to demolish it. But when we …
The Narmada Bachao Andolan, which wants a revaluation of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), says the review team should consist of pro-dam and anti-dam groups. The Prime Minister or the minister for water resources should lead the pro-dam group, which should include officials from the states concerned with the project …
THE BANGLADESH government has modified procedures for nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in order to simplify procedures and establish their accountability, reports Mostafa Kamal Majumder. The step followed allegations by the NGO Affairs Bureau that leading NGOs were violating rules. Under the new rules, the ministry of home affairs will decide whether …
January 30, 1989: Official Secrets Act imposed on 10 villages around the dam site; 18 protesting activists and 500 villagers arrested. February 22: Medha Patkar and 8,000 others arrested near dam site. May 18, 1990: Armed police beat up people in 17 Madhya Pradesh villages that would be the first …
WHEN THE UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights meets in Geneva in August, we may see another forward step by the growing movement for international acceptance for the concept of environmental rights. The meeting will review a three-year study on the links between human rights and the environment by the sub-commission's …
MOST OF the 300 million indigenous people in the world live in highly vulnerable ecosystems and have often been deprived of their human rights and fundamental freedom, resulting in dispossession of their land and resources. Because they are such a high risk group, they are also the most in need …
Brazil: All persons are entitled to an ecologically balanced environment. China: The state is to protect and improve the living environment and the ecological environment, and prevent and combat pollution and other hazards. Guyana: In the interests of the present and future generations, the state is to take all appropriate …
THIRD World Network (TWN), a Malaysia-based environment group, has voiced its concern over some basic issues in USA's controversial interpretative statement of the Biodiversity Convention, which US President Bill Clinton has agreed to sign (Down To Earth, June 15, 1993). The US interpretation says, "Private parties (read companies) should have …
LABELLING the government's forest policy, in force since 1988, as monopolistic and inefficient, the World Bank (WB) insists the best solution now would be to encourage private industrial plantations on forest lands. WB has issued its latest review of the country's forest sector, describing it as an "overview...for Indian policy …
WORLD Bank documents reveal the following stages in its forestry policy evaluation: 1950-1978:Concentration on industrial plantations and logging operations. 1978-1990: -- Thrust on social forestry (developing fuelwood plantations) and watershed management. Forestry included in such sectors as rural development, agriculture, irrigation and energy. 1991: revision -- Focus on protection of …
EVERYONE agrees that the greatest achievement of the world's largest-ever environment conference -- at Rio last year -- was the establishment of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) to monitor environmental degradation. But how effective the 53-member CSD, scheduled to hold its first meeting on June 14, will be is …
WHEN VISITING a village in Tamil Nadu's Dharmapuri or Karnataka's Mysore districts, you may come across a group of about 25 adults busily laying out an intricate design on the ground, using powdered rice, coloured chalk, twigs and pebbles. The designs are not mere patterns in colour; they are diagrams …
